Ceddanne Rafaela hits three doubles to lead Red Sox rout of Diamondbacks

Mac Cerullo, Boston Herald on Aug 17, 2026

Published in Baseball

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BOSTON — Throughout the club’s hot streak it seemed like the Boston Red Sox always came up with the big hit in the big moments, but over the past week the offense often reverted back to its ugly, first-half habits.

But Monday night, the Red Sox found their mojo again.

The Red Sox clobbered the Arizona Diamondbacks 11-1 in Monday’s series opener, scoring in six consecutive innings while going 6 for 13 with runners in scoring position. Ceddanne Rafaela busted out of his recent slump with three doubles, Willson Contreras hit a solo shot in the fifth inning for his 25th home run of the season to set a new career-high, and Brayan Bello threw 4 2/3 stellar innings of relief following left-handed opener Alec Gamboa.

The Red Sox jumped in front in the bottom of the second when Caleb Durbin drew a leadoff walk, advanced to third on a wild pitch and a stolen base and scored on Eli White’s subsequent RBI single. Nick Sogard followed with an RBI double, the first of his two doubles on the night, to make it 2-0.

Boston kept piling on from there.

Durbin hit an RBI single to extend the lead in the third, Rafaela hit an RBI double in the fourth and Boston really blew things open with three more runs in the fifth to make it 7-0. Contreras led off the inning with his solo shot, and after that the Red Sox benefited from a pair of outfield errors by the Diamondbacks, including one by right fielder Corbin Carroll on a line drive from Adley Rutschman to the warning track that the All-Star outfielder flat out dropped.

Left fielder Ryan Waldschmidt misplayed another ball by Durbin to put two men into scoring position, and both men came into score on Andruw Monasterio’s sacrifice fly and Mickey Gasper’s RBI groundout.

That was more than enough cushion for Bello.

After Gamboa retired Arizona’s first four batters, Bello took the hill with one out in the second inning and smothered the Snakes. The Diamondbacks got two men on in the second but couldn’t capitalize, and from there the Red Sox right-hander retired 10 straight Arizona hitters.

Bello ran into trouble in the sixth when he loaded the bases with one out on a hit batsman, a fielder’s choice, a walk and a single, but he limited the damage to one run by drawing a sacrifice fly from Geraldo Perdomo to left field and striking out Jordan Lawler to end the threat.

One of the issues for Boston’s offense lately has been the inconsistent play of Rafaela and Rutschman. Coming into the day Rafaela was 5 for his last 21 (.238) and had only drawn one walk since the All-Star break, and Rutschman was 1 for 17 in his first five games as a member of the Red Sox.

But both players enjoyed potential breakouts on Monday and factored into another big inning in the sixth.

Rafaela started things off with his second double of the day and came around to score on Wilyer Abreu’s RBI single. Then, after ripping a hard line drive to right in his previous at bat, Rutschman sent a clean RBI double down the left-field line to drive in his first run as a member of the Red Sox.

Finally, after Gasper led off the seventh with a solo home run, Rafaela and Abreu ran it back again. Rafaela hit his third double of the game and immediately scored on Abreu’s second RBI single in consecutive innings.

Red Sox rookie Wyatt Olds, who was called up from Triple-A shortly before first pitch, made his MLB debut in the top of the ninth and struck out two in a perfect frame to close out the win.

Rafaela finished the night 3 for 5 with the three doubles and two runs scored, Durbin went 3 for 4 with an RBI, a walk and a stolen base and Gasper and Abreu tallied two RBI each.

With the win the Red Sox gained half a game on the idle Yankees and are now 2 1/2 games back of New York in the AL East and AL wild-card standings.

Marte no-shows

An extremely odd situation played out at Fenway Park Monday night where the Diamondbacks didn’t submit a lineup until minutes before first pitch.

It turned out the reason why was because one of their best players didn’t show up to the ballpark.

The Diamondbacks placed All-Star second baseman Ketel Marte on the restricted list after he reportedly no-showed Monday’s series opener at Fenway Park. According to MLB.com’s Steve Gilbert and others Marte traveled with the team to Boston from Atlanta, where the Diamondbacks just wrapped up a three-game series against the Braves, and was scheduled to serve as the designated hitter against the Red Sox.

Instead, the Diamondbacks scrambled and activated infielder Jose Fernandez to fill his roster spot. Fernandez got the start at third base and Lars Nootbaar started at designated hitter in Marte’s place.

Marte is a three-time All-Star who has been among the league’s most prolific power-hitting second basemen over the past decade. The 32-year-old is a two-time Silver Slugger winner with two top-four MVP finishes, and since 2019 has finished with 25 or more home runs four times. This year Marte is batting .249 with 21 home runs, 67 RBI and a .760 OPS.

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